To continue the story about spheres and surroundings here are two sleeves from Professor I. K. Belemu arranged in his own orbit. Both records are from beginning to end extremly beautiful, so it was hard for me to decide which song I would play here. The Owigiri King was released on Supremedisk and the other one on Akpolla Records. Deep and funky 80´s highlife from Nigeria!
“The Osuopele Union of Ojobo”
“Boeye Laye Fa”
Both sleeves use the artists image to create ornamental structures in a fine way. The orbiting ornaments have a delightful and mesmerising effect on me. The repetition used on both images generates a certain movement around the center image (the heart and the shape of nigeria) which amplify the importance of the performers. The arrow from the Great Ojo sleeve is targeting Benin City, the capital of edo-funk and hometown of Akpolla Records.
listen to funky “Uwa-Bu-Afia” from Juana-Tina, Akpolla Records, AGB 012
and “Oriovbe” from Great Ojo, Akpolla Records, AGB 128
Both records are from one of my favourite nigerian highlife labels: Akpolla Records.
This label released about 250 records in the 70´s and 80´s from famous artists like Rex Lawson, Ali Chukwuma, Rogana Ottah, I.K. Belemu plus many more amazing deep highlife and edo-funk recordings from other less known artists.
From time to time I find a record cover where the composition is based on one single image of the artist which appears in the design several times. Sometimes they are strung after another and vary in size. Sometimes the designer mirrored them. This simple technique has an bewildering and brightening effect on me.
The music of Alex Konadu too:
A side medley of KBL 039, BHM (Brobisco House Of Music), 1977, Ghana
Inside the cover of Abiiba Nagoodey I found this audio cassette cover:
“strung multiplicity”